How To! with Mike Pesca

Ofra splits her time among a number of hobbies in her retirement, but she wants to stop feeling rudderless and find the focus necessary to write a book of observational humor based on her twenty-year career as a psychotherapist. Enter David Epstein, workplace researcher and author of Inside the Box, who advocates for creating artificial structure and imposing concrete deadlines rather than falling into the trap of endless optionality. He introduces Ofra to an evaluation rubric for vetting creative output, advising her to write a mock press release before starting her project to define her audience and clarify the exact parenting misconceptions she wants to target. He exposes the traps of subtraction neglect that trick retirees into adding too many low-stakes activities to their daily routines.


Executive Producer Corey Wara
Edited by Geoff Craig
Booking by Ben Astaire
Do you have a burning question or a problem you need help with? Email us at howto@mikepesca.com and we will consider your topic for the show.
For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To receive ad-free content, become a Pesca Plus subscriber at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/
Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/ X https://x.com/pescami YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@pescagist⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist
To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/howto

India splits her time between contract production and agency work, but she wants to stop prioritizing other people's projects to scale her personal brand. Enter Simone Stolzoff, workplace researcher and author of The Good Enough Job, who advocates for building a multi-pronged freelance career rather than recklessly burning your ships. He introduces India to an evaluation rubric for vetting new business, advising her to decline any corporate opportunity that does not offer either a premium payout or a clear brand-building advantage. He exposes the traps of vocational awe that trick creatives into accepting less than they deserve, warns her about the exhausting grind of narrow algorithmic niches, and hands her a data-driven framework to prototype and prune her various income streams as her professional goals evolve.


Executive Producer Corey Wara
Edited by Geoff Craig
Booking by Ben Astaire
Do you have a burning question or a problem you need help with? Email us at howto@mikepesca.com and we will consider your topic for the show.
For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To receive ad-free content, become a Pesca Plus subscriber at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/
Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/ X https://x.com/pescami YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@pescagist⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist
To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/howto

Steven racks up acquaintances on group mountain bike rides, but he cannot turn a casual trailhead hello into a real friendship. For decades he coasted on the built-in connections of  being in a band, working in a lab, and having a wife who did the social legwork. But now he needs to make some new friends. Enter Dr. Marisa G. Franco, University of Maryland professor and New York Times bestselling author, who studies adult connection for a living. She walks Steven through the "liking gap," the trap where you assume people like you less than they actually do. She exposes the covert avoidance that keeps him safe and alone. And she hands him a "repotting" strategy for converting trail buddies into a genuine community.


Executive Producer Corey Wara
Edited by Geoff Craig
Booking by Ben Astaire
Do you have a burning question or a problem you need help with? Email us at howto@mikepesca.com and we will consider your topic for the show.
For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To receive ad-free content, become a Pesca Plus subscriber at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/
Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/ X https://x.com/pescami YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@pescagist⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist
To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/howto

This week we're sharing a special episode from our friends at Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin — the Webby Award–winning podcast hosted by psychotherapist and mental strength trainer Amy Morin, whose TEDx talk has been viewed more than 25 million times and whose books have sold over a million copies in more than fifty languages.
Every week, Amy shares a practical, research-backed mental strength strategy you can use right away. Think of it as a therapy session you don't have to book: all of the strategy, none of the small talk.
Today we're sharing her episode on outsmarting your inner critic. Amy introduces the anxious voice in her own head that tries to keep her from taking risks, and walks through a simple three-step play — backed by research on self-distancing — for taking that voice's power away so it stops running your life. This play is one of the fifty tools in her brand-new book, The Mental Strength Playbook.
For more strategies like this, follow Mentally Stronger on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell her Mike sent you.

There's one thing that all of Helena's personal projects have in common: they remain unfinished. The family photo album is empty, as is her mom's recipe book. And the lavender garden is still unplanted. Helena is not lazy. In fact, she's a busy lawyer who has no problem finishing tasks at the office. But she's also a busy mother raising a family, and free time is hard to come by. So how can Helena banish her distractions? On this episode of How To!, the first in a two-part series on time management, we talk to Nir Eyal, author of Indistractable: How To Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Nir used to be just as distracted as Helena, but then he figured out some tricks to break free from his stray thoughts. He explains why procrastination isn't a sign of laziness, it's a sign of discomfort. And why it's more important to address your feelings than silence your push notifications. 
If you liked this episode, check out: "How To Stop Procrastinating" and make sure to tune in next week to learn how to set the perfect deadline.